According to Wiesmann, these fender panels were merely part of the GT4 RS’s camouflage as the car hasn’t been officially released to the public yet, and this camo would not have had a significant effect on the car’s lap time. Wiesmann explained:
“The 718 Cayman GT4 RS that we used to set the lap time at the Nürburgring was a camouflaged car, as we have not unveiled the full production look yet, which will happen next month. This is also why the areas on the fender you are indicating are covered, as we don’t want to show unique (new) details of the car until the premiere happens. This is common practice as part of our final test runs, which I’m sure you know if you’ve followed other lap time runs such as with the 992 GT3 or Cayenne Turbo GT. The affect of the camouflaging on the car’s performance in this case is negligible.”
Wiesmann also reiterated that the car was verified by an on-site notary as a production-spec example, right down to the weight, tires used and engine specs.
Yet the piece that would matter for this discussion is, would having an exposed fender vent have let the GT4 RS set a faster lap time, or not?
How much faster could it go, though? Charoudin told The Drive that he believes the GT4 RS could be capable of a sub-7-minute lap time on the old-school 12.8-mile Sport Auto test length of the Nordschleife, and plans on releasing a more technical follow-up video on the GT4 RS lap next week. A sub-7-minute time on the Sport Auto length puts a “humble” 718 Cayman into truly ludicrous territory, beating out previous lap times set in the Ferrari 488 Pista and Dodge Viper ACR, according to the list up on FastestLaps. Just don’t expect Porsche’s official published time for that distance of 7:04.511 to drop, as they don’t plan on doing an official re-run.
Now, I don’t think Porsche would sandbag this lap to protect the sacred name of the 911, either. Rather, I think they were playing it safe—certainly not chickening out, but erring just on the side of caution. The lap-setting GT4 RS is still a lightly camo’d test car, after all, and the goal of any test session is to push it, but ultimately bring the car you’re evaluating home in one piece.
“There is a difference in a test driver and a race driver,” explained Motor Trend of Lars Kern’s role as a Porsche test driver. “‘As a test driver, I don’t like to take chances,’ [Kern] says. If he wads up a test car, Porsche has likely lost a great deal of data.”
So, we may have to wait for Sport Auto or some other person with a timer to get their hands on the new GT4 RS to find out if it can really go faster. As a Cayman fan, I’m pretty excited about it either way.
Got any wild info on lap records, test cars, ‘Ring drama or other cool stuff we should know about? Email the author: [email protected]